I was wondering if you might think about supporting parallel texts, which is a way that some learners like to read their books.

I should say that I'm not really thinking of an actual parallel-ised version of a book (although that might be another option), but when you have, say, an e-book in your target language, and a translation of it into your native language as another e-book.

I think with suitable "screen gymnastics" it's probably possible to read a book in parallel already with something like Calibre, but it would be great if there were a tool specifically designed to make this easier.

i.e. display the pages of the book side by side, and advance them together (allowing the user to optionally adjust, because it would be pretty hard to always make sure they were in sync automatically.

If it helps, I could probably let you have some e-books I have in more than one language, for testing the idea.

Users could still click on the target language words to translate them and have them saved for learning or reference, but also have the English meaning (in context) on the other side to refer to, for cases where it wasn't 100% clear, etc.

It might also be good to be able to hide the native language version (or the target language version), at will, if one only wanted to concentrate on the target language for a while (or alternatively, to read a passage thoroughly in the native language without distraction for a while, then go back and read it in the target language, or variations on that theme).

Regards,
Mike

I was wondering if you might think about supporting parallel texts, which is a way that some learners like to read their books.

I should say that I'm not really thinking of an actual parallel-ised version of a book (although that might be another option), but when you have, say, an e-book in your target language, and a translation of it into your native language as another e-book.

I think with suitable "screen gymnastics" it's probably possible to read a book in parallel already with something like Calibre, but it would be great if there were a tool specifically designed…

I really like this idea. In fact I’ve been thinking about something similar for a while.

When a text is far beyond your reading level a side by side option would be ideal. And when you aren’t struggling so much, it’s probably better to show the translation only for sentences or paragraphs as needed, like you suggest.

No promises on this at the moment though I’m afraid, I have a lot of other work to do first.

I’ll think about adding an option for this in future because it’s been suggested a couple of times, but I actually prefer the way it works now. Let me explain.

If you click on a word or phrase, it means you don’t know what it means, or at least weren’t sure what it means. Therefore you should work on learning it in the “Learn” section, or if you made a mistake and accidentally clicked a word you already know, or it’s not useful to you, just delete it as soon as you encounter it in the “Learn” section.

I don’t like the idea of an extra click to favourite each word as you are reading because one of the key motivations of the site is to make reading as distraction free as possible, adding only tools that help you understand the text and then get out of the way. This way I hope people have a better chance of enjoying the story and staying motivated to read more.

Perhaps the “Words” section could be improved to allow more efficient clean up of your word list.

Which language are you learning by the way? I imagine that useless words are a far greater problem in those languages for which I don’t have word frequency lists, and therefore Readlang can’t prioritise the most useful words to learn first.

I’ll think about adding an option for this in future because it’s been suggested a couple of times, but I actually prefer the way it works now. Let me explain.

If you click on a word or phrase, it means you don’t know what it means, or at least weren’t sure what it means. Therefore you should work on learning it in the “Learn” section, or if you made a mistake and accidentally clicked a word you already know, or it’s not useful to you, just delete it as soon as you encounter it in the “Learn” section.

I don’t like the idea of an extra click to favourite each word as you are reading because one of the key motivations of the site is to make reading as distraction free as possible, adding only tools that help you understand the text and then get out of the way. This…

One way to to accomplish this is to always include the article (e.g. in English a, an, the) along with the word. The idea of Readlang is to always learn words or phrases as they appear in a given context.

I do agree that it would be nice to show the gender information without needing to include other words. Just offering a alternative solution that may help.

using the chrome extension, I can have students click on the word and see it in their language...but they need to know how to pronounce it in English in the page rather than having to go into readlang's page and hearing it and then go back

My idea is basically to do an Assimil styled approach but be able to incorporate your flashcards (or Anki) with it in this way: 1) listen to the recording, 2) transcribe and sync, 3) review with flashcards and, of course, be able to click on a word to hear it individually (which I think you have as a premium already).

So, if I could upload audio I could then use podcasts and other sources besides YT. I'd like to be able to import audio files (Mp3 would be the first choice) and sync them up just as your YT function already does.

My idea is basically to do an Assimil styled approach but be able to incorporate your flashcards (or Anki) with it in this way: 1) listen to the recording, 2) transcribe and sync, 3) review with flashcards and, of course, be able to click on a word to hear it individually (which I think you have as a premium already).

So, if I could upload audio I could then use podcasts and other sources besides YT. I'd like to be able to import audio files (Mp3 would be the first choice) and sync them up just as your YT function…